This episode was directed by the lovely and talented Jensen Ackles! Too bad the writers gave him a lame-o story that is a rehash of the Sammy’s Love Kills All trope. Sheesh, thanks a lot guys.

Remember last week when we had this exciting, tightly written story that was not only fun, but gave us some character love and ended with a harrowing ride to the hospital for our heroes? Well, all solved in mere minutes. Bobby pops up with no explanation as to why he was missing, or how he got back to he hospital; Dean gets his leg set and a full leg cast put on in record time, before the leviathan have a chance to realize he and Sammy are even in the building; Sammy, unconscious and conveniently gurney bound in the hall for a quick getaway; hell, even the potentially devastating fire at Bobby’s is hand-waved away with a lousy, “I made copies” of all the pertinent books supposedly lost. Wow. Ben Edlund gives us a tasty treat, with real potential for our beautiful boys to be in peril and be clever and smart, and we get this opening bit. I have gone from giddy fangirl to bittercakes in one, short week.

So let’s see how the rest of the episode fares, shall we? (full disclosure: I have been fighting a nasty cold this week, and may be extra cranky because of it)

Three weeks later we find our barely battered boys and Bobby holed up in Rufus’ cabin in the woods of Whitefish, Montana. I have been to Whitefish. It is lovely. Dean has been entranced by Mexican tv novellas (hee!) and Sammy has been… reading? Dean sends Sam off to the grocery for grub, with a special request for pie, a Winchester favorite. Then Sam turns into a jerk, and not only gets cake instead of pie for his hobbled brother (cake is so not the same as pie, Sam!), but after reading about a familiar to him serial killer, he takes off, leaving Dean the most vague “I’m outta here and I’m fine!!” note ever! Nice Sam. Leave your defenseless brother in the Montana woods for a few days… so of course Dean decides to saw off the cast and head out looking for MaybeCrazySammy. Also, somewhere in the past three weeks those wily leviathan have procured a list of the Winchester credit card aliases, and have a tracker working at the credit card company, making it that much easier to track those boys down. Hmm. Con-veeen-ient.

Sepia toned flashback! to twelve year-old Sammy, on his own, doing research for his Dad (terrible parenting alert!), and falling for his first lovely lady monster, setting up a pattern we all know too well. Oh Sam, such bad judgement when it comes to the ladies! By the way, the actor who has played young Sammy several times, Colin Ford, is a good little actor, and he does a great job being a nervous, lovelorn kiddo here. We learn that this particular lady monster is a ‘kitsune’, which I have never heard of, and likes the taste of human pituitary glands. Nom.

Anyway, this particular lady monster is named Amy Pond (wait *rewind* did I hear that right?), and then we find out that the grown-up version of Amy Pond(!!) is played by Jewel Staite (a fangirl squee! rings out in the room. Doctor Who and Firefly references in the same show? Hooray!). The short of all of this is that young Amy killed her brain hungry momma to save young Sammy, and so when grown Amy shows grown Sam her son, her reason for the current killing spree, he lets her go, the old softy.

Meanwhile, Dean is tracking down Sammy, amazingly mobile for a man three weeks off a compound fracture to the leg. And then, we get the best gag of the show, when Sammy shows up at his motel, he gets a well deserved punch in the face from an off-screen Dean, awesomely flailing backwards and falling to the ground. Ha! Well deserved!! After a little confessional between those pretty brothers in the motel room (I have missed those motel rooms!), we retread the Sam Is A Freak blah blah, and the Will Dean Trust Sammy thing, and blah blah, because we all know Dean can’t let that keeping a monster alive thing go, and heads off to kill Amy Pond. Of course Dean is an old softy too, and can’t bear to kill Amy’s son – ’cause he’s just a kid! who hasn’t killed anyone (yet) – and plants a nice seed of revenge for that little kitsune to water and grow for a few years until he comes looking for that extra pretty pituitary in Dean’s noodle. Well done, Dean.

The episode ends with an awesome death assisted by nacho cheese by our tracker leviathan, because as we all know, everything is better with cheese! Nice! That and the punch were the best parts of this one. Hey, I don’t mind a place holder episode, but I am kinda tired of Sammy is a Freak and Dean Doesn’t Trust His Brother. We know! I mean, they are at least talking a bit and not being totally secret keepers, but let’s get on with it, please. All in all, not a totally horrible episode, but after last week I had such high hopes.

Next week: Jo!!! (I’m not the only one who loves her, right?)